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CEO of Foro Energy named one of 3 energy innovators under 35 to know

CEO of Foro Energy named one of 3 energy innovators under 35 to know Laser drill bit of Foro Energy ... and this is NOT Joel Moxley (source: Foro Energy)
Alexander Richter 11 Jan 2012

The founder and CEO of Foro Energy, Joel Moxley was named one of 3 energy innovators under 35 of an MIT list of 35 innovators under 35. Foro Energy is a technology company focusing on laser technology for drilling in the oil and gas, mining and geothermal industry.

MIT Tech Review publishes annually a list of 35 innovators under 35 and there are always some individuals from the energy, energy efficiency and clean power sectors. In the list released for 2011, Joel Moxley, Founder and CEO of Foro Energy was an interesting mentioning and he was named one of “3 Energy Innovators under 35 you should know” in a an article by tech blog GigaOm.

Why is Foro Energy interesting in the geothermal energy context? Well it was a bit of a surprise if the company received some ARPA-E funding in 2009 for its technology development work on drilling. … and this is all people knew about the company at the time. Now we know that the company is developing a laser-based technology that is to help make drilling more efficient and cheaper.

For the future of the geothermal energy industry, people agree that EGS will play an important role and this means that we need to drill deeper wells that are more expensive to drill. So a drive into developing technology that helps overcome technical hurdles and makes drilling to these depths cheaper is important and very interesting to the geothermal sector, and naturally also for the oil & gas sector.

Joel Moxley, 31 years of age, is the founder and CEO of Foro Energy with a background and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and North Bridge Venture Partners, also one of the investors in Foro Energy.

The company is developing laser technology that can be utilized despite long power laser transmission, here in our context at great depths. It will be interesting to see when the technology will be applied for EGS projects and see it in action.

So there is ongoing technology development in drilling, one of the crucial elements of geothermal project development. To see some competition between companies in this field, Potter Drilling and Foro Energy is great. Any help to decrease drilling cost is welcome.

Source: GigaOm, Foro Energy